Advertising Standards Authority finds against contractoruk

[Churchill]

What skills can you bring?

You've met him!

He's not someone to "trifle" with...
(Yeah, I know it was ice cream but trifle sounds better...)

[BrilloPad]

You've met him!

He's not someone to "trifle" with...
(Yeah, I know it was ice cream but trifle sounds better...)

I missed the meal.

Anyway I was hoping he would say restore LR posts or something.....

[minestrone]

If they had posted that they had 350,000 unique visitors in a month would you have chased them in the same way they chased you. Out of interest?

[Sysman]

On the other hand, it also doesn't work for visitors who have JavaScript (which is used to set the cookie) disabled, or whose firewall or proxy removes JavaScript. Nor does it take account of users who disable or delete their cookies.

Overall, it is generally accepted that these reasons why one individual may be tracked as two or more unique visitors, while another individual isn't tracked as a visitor at all, tend to balance out over the long run. As mentioned in ContractorUK's post above, ABCe accepts the validity of the tracking process implemented by Google Analytics for the purpose of providing a reasonably accurate figure for unique visitors.

So I'm hardly ever counted here.

That also explains why so many sites try to insist that I switch Javascript on (or allow it via Noscript), when doing so offers me nothing in return, and in the worst cases a severe degradation in performance.

[Contractor UK]

There is an appeals process voodoo, but unfortunately it's much like a judicial review (you have to prove a substantial flaw of process) and therefore it's extremely expensive.

[Churchill]

There is an appeals process voodoo, but unfortunately it's much like a judicial review (you have to prove a substantial flaw of process) and therefore it's extremely expensive.

Would you like to borrow my "F**k 'em" badge?

[voodooflux]

There is an appeals process voodoo, but unfortunately it's much like a judicial review (you have to prove a substantial flaw of process) and therefore it's extremely expensive.

Sounds like an incredibly frustrating experience, especially given (as you point out) that the CAP code does not require the figures to be audited. Did the ASA give you the opportunity to have the figures audited before they passed judgement?

This might be worth bringing to the attention of El Reg - they might be interested to report on the implications of the ASA not accepting GA stats to be a credible source of data.

[DS23]

i'm sure we can help come up with a new tagline.

can we have a competition?

[Purple Dalek]

i'm sure we can help come up with a new tagline.

can we have a competition?

Why not do a Heineken and slap a "probably" on the end.

Or is it Carlsberg?

[Contractor UK]

It's a good point voodoo - ABCe (the only body that audits) doesn't carry out retrospective audits, so no this wasn't an option.

ABCe do offer "Faithful Extraction reports for clients wishing to declare traffic statistics based on non-authenticated raw log files." but data derived from such a report is, according to ABCe, "issued for internal use only - so are strictly not for public domain use." So it couldn't be submitted to the ASA either.

Frustrating? Yes. Will this decision (or indeed the inaccuracies written about this decision on other sites) deter us? No.